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SATURDAY March 27 , 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels March 12, 2004 Watershed logging begins Monday By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings Logging trucks will soon start rumbling through town, and roads and trails in the lower Ashland Watershed will be closed to recreation as a thinning project begins on city-owned forest land. But despite the inconveniences, the citizens and city staff who spent the last six years developing the 183-acre City Forest Lands Restoration Project said the results will be worthwhile. "We're excited to proceed. It's been years in the planning. We feel it's a good project that's going to accomplish the objectives," said Ashland Fire & Rescue Chief Keith Woodley, who - along with city forestry consultant Marty Main - worked with the Ashland Forest Lands Commission on the plan. Years of fire suppression have led to overstocked tree stands suffering from insect infestation and disease. Thinning the trees will lower wildfire risk and improve the health of remaining trees by reducing competition for water, nutrients and sunlight, project proponents said. Operations starting According to city staff, Superior Helicopter LLC ground crews will cut marked trees beginning Monday through April 5, working six- to seven-hour shifts from dawn to dusk, Monday through Saturday. From dawn to dusk April 5 through April 17, the company's helicopters will fly logs out seven days a week. Also starting April 5, logging trucks will begin hauling felled trees down Granite Street during daylight hours. The helicopters will deliver the logs on weekdays to a landing area at the Granite Street quarry above Lithia Park. On weekends, the helicopters will use a landing area at milepost 3.5 on Forest Service Road 2060 higher in the Ashland Watershed. Logging trucks will haul 15 to 20 loads per day from the landing areas, through town to Ashland Street, and out to Interstate 5 for delivery to a Boise mill in White City. Dates of operation are contingent on the weather. The area will be closed to recreation beginning Monday for the duration of the project. Granite Street will be closed at its intersection with Glenview Drive. Notices of road and trail closures also will be posted at Forest Service Road 2060 milepost 3.55, the Water Plant Access Road, Hitt Road, West Forest Ashland Creek, Four Corners, Alice-in-Wonderland trailheads, Waterline Hiking Trail, BTI Trail, Granite Street granite pit and Glenview granite pit. The City of Ashland sent letters to residents on or near Granite Street, and posted information on its Web site at ashland.or.us. Ashland Forest Lands Commissioner JoAnne Eggers, herself a Granite Street resident, said people face inconveniences as they attempt to return forests to the more open, healthy state resulting from frequent, low-intensity natural wildfires. "Because of fire suppression, we have conditions that are way beyond normal, not in all areas, but in a lot of areas," Eggers said. "We'll have to deal with it by cutting or burning. I've heard people talking about the smoke. Either way, it's all going to affect us." Since late winter, smoke has occasionally drifted near the valley as the city, U.S. Forest Service and private landowners carry out separate projects in the watershed to burn piles of previously cut brush and small diameter trees. 'Light touch' thinning The City Forest Lands Restoration Project is the forest lands commission's first fuels reduction project involving the removal of commercially-sized trees. Commissioners began with the principle that no tree would be removed simply to increase revenues from a timber sale, but only for ecological reasons. As a result, more than 96 percent of the trees to be cut are 18 inches in diameter or less. Main tracked each tree to be cut over 17 inches and provided a reason for its removal. The majority of those larger trees are dead. Despite early fears that the large number of small diameter and dead trees would scare off prospective bidders, the city attracted six bids from helicopter operators and mills. According to Woodley, the city awarded the mill bid to Boise, which will pay $450 to $626 per thousand board feet for the timber. Superior Helicopter will charge $581 per thousand board feet to remove the timber - putting the project in break-even territory. "We were very, very fortunate that our timing coincided with the mills' demand for logs," said Woodley, noting that small diameter-oriented projects frequently don't pay for themselves. The mill will pay a higher price depending on the length, condition and species of the felled trees. Because of the large amount of insect-infested wood, some trees may break when they hit the ground and not meet the mill's minimum length requirement, he said. About 400,000 to 500,000 board feet will be removed, according to Woodley. Some voice concerns Environmental activist Eric Navickas remains opposed to the cutting of commercially-sized trees on the city land. He said the project provides tacit endorsement of the Forest Service's proposed 8,150-acre Ashland Forest Resiliency project, which also involves commercial logging in the watershed. Additionally, he questioned the motives of some forest land commissioners. "I hope this is a real wake-up call to the citizens of Ashland," Navickas said. "A small minority of pro-timber individuals promoted this project. It will become apparent as log trucks start going through Ashland." But Eggers, a board member for the Headwaters environmental group as well as a forest lands commissioner, disagreed with that assessment. "The forest lands commission has moved this project forward because we believe it is the best we can do for the environment," she said. "There is a range of opinion on the forest lands commission. I don't think even the person who wanted to do the most aggressive project was motivated by a desire to provide wood to the timber industry. Our motivation was to provide the best on-the-ground project for the ecosystem." The project was unanimously approved by the commission and the Ashland City Council last fall. Forest Service logging Meanwhile, Ashland District Ranger Linda Duffy is holding out hope that Superior Helicopter can take out trees to be thinned from 70 acres of district land in the watershed as part of the Forest Service's 1,550 acre Ashland Watershed Protection Project. Non-commercial thinning began on that wildfire fuels reduction project in 2001, and helicopter logging of commercially-sized trees was scheduled to begin this year. "We hope to be able to put our four units up while the city's operator is still on the site," Duffy said. "We have a window of hope." Duffy has applied for stewardship contracting authority, which would allow her to choose Superior without a competitive bidding process. Superior also could bid on the district logging project against other helicopter operators, she said. According to Duffy, the ranger district was not able to offer its project in tandem with the city because Rogue River and Siskiyou National Forest staff needed to prepare the small-scale timber sale were occupied with salvage logging plans for the Biscuit Fire, which burned nearly 500,000 acres in 2002. 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